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Destination: Arizona

Today I am flying to Phoenix, Arizona for the Students For Liberty Arizona Regional Conference. While there I will stay with my maternal grandparents who live in Scottsdale. They spent most of their adult lives in Crystal Lake, a suburb of Chicago, but started splitting time between Illinois and Arizona after retiring.

I have been to Scottsdale at least once a year since my grandparents became “snowbirds” about fifteen years ago. I have many memories there, primarily of swimming, golfing, and playing games. My grandparents have a pool and hot tub in their backyard so swimming is very convenient. They also live in a golf resort community and are members of the Desert Forest Country Club nearby. As a kid we often played Payday, Racko, and a Pokèmon board game. These days it is most commonly Quirkle, Golo, and Gin Rummy.

There are a few pieces of pop culture I strongly associate with visiting my grandparents in Scottsdale. I first remember listening to the album Learning How To Smile Part 1 by Everclear, one of my favorite albums, in Scottsdale. The same goes for Permission To Land by The Darkness (a great album for warm weather). As a kid I watched Good Burger, Spy Kids, and the first Pokèmon movie a lot there.

I have sustained three major injuries while visiting my grandparents. The first time I was about eight years old and I slipped in the shower, slamming my jaw on the soap dish and biting through my lip. The second time, I was maybe eleven. While attempting to set up a telescope on the deck, I ran inside. Well, I ran into a sliding glass door and chipped my front tooth pretty bad. The third (and hopefully final!) injury came about by hitting the brakes on my bike while riding downhill. I flipped over my handlebars, suffering a concussion which knocked me out and a broken wrist. I was about 13 when that happened.

Here’s to hoping for a productive, enjoyable, and injury-free trip to Arizona!

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Start of State Policy Network Annual Meeting 2015

I am on my way to the State Policy Network’s (SPN) Annual Meeting today. SPN is the network of state-based free market think tanks in the United States. I have previously attended this event in Amelia Island, FL and Oklahoma City. This year the event is being hosted by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Grand Rapids, MI. I spent the summer of 2012 as an intern at the Mackinac Center working on their Michigan Capitol Confidential publication. My work from that time, a series of investigative journalism pieces of government investments in green energy projects, is available online here.

I attended my first SPN Annual Meeting through their Generation Liberty Fellowship for young people interested in free market think tank work. I hosted a session on student outreach for think tanks on behalf of SFL. I think it was a moderately successful session. The next year I attended entirely on behalf of SFL, again running the student outreach session.

This year I have four primary areas of focus. The first is professional development through sessions on management and fundraising. The second is fundraising through meeting with new, potential, and current SFL donors. Third is maintaining SFL’s presence at our exhibitor booth. My final focus is networking with existing and new contacts, updating them on SFL’s work and my current role as well as learning of new projects from other organizations.

I am very excited for this conference and hope to gain a lot from my participation. This is my first non-SFL libertarian event in months. Following the conference, Kelly and I will meet up and head to Michigan State to attend the football game against Purdue with my old roommates and their significant others: Nick, Jay, Kara, Kyle, and Kate. On Sunday, we will celebrate my 24th birthday with my family. This should be a great week!